The Pickle Jar

To go along with the Disco Pickle theme, and since our vehicle happens to be green, we’ve already given the Vue the trail name of Pickle Jar. It just made sense! And it’s been through a lot already.

The Pickle Jar is 9 years old this month. Over the years it’s been driven a lot of miles, gotten a refurbished transmission, a new driver’s side door panel, a new back hatch, factory-installed crossbars, an updated stereo, and most recently a new passenger’s side window and luggage carrier. Adam and I still love this car. We’re happy we’re able to take it on this trip, and we hope she holds up for us.

I’m sure most of you have heard about Adam’s car accident with my dad’s pickup truck, and you’ll hear about it again briefly in my upcoming entry about our hiker food… but we were shocked to find out we had a little more bad luck to get out of the way before we left.

We were on our way to Oshkosh last week to tie up some loose ends. We were passing a logging truck on Hwy 51 near Merrill, going 65 mph when the truck kicked up a rock or something and instantly shattered the window next to me. I nearly threw myself in Adam’s lap because it scared the crap out of me! It was so loud!

Adam pulled over and I got out of the car to shake the glass out of my pants and clean up as much of it as I could out of the door and my seat. I bundled up in a quilt we had in the back, and both Adam and I put our hats and gloves on. Thankfully it was warm for a Wisconsin winter day. But driving the rest of the way to Oshkosh on the highway with no window was still a pretty chilly ride.

Broken window. BOO!

We got it fixed in Oshkosh and were able to drive home the next day with no more strange occurances. So we hope we’re done with that stuff now! On with this trip already!

We did get our luggage carrier for the Pickle Jar (its lid, of course), and that went really well. One smaller step closer to being ready to roll.

I’m trying to post this all via my phone, so I hope it turns out readable! I have a couple more entries coming, and once we hit the road (FRIDAY OMG!), I hope to write daily. So you’ll be getting more updates soon! :)